Food Trends I Don't Get

I do not understand the trend to turn bananas into “ice cream” and cauliflower into

“pizza crust” or “mashed potatoes.” I think the last time I ate cauliflower was in my 20’s and in a cauliflower and cheese soup which tasted mostly like cheese and you got a bread bowl and soup for cheap at the Student Union. It was okay but not my first choice.

Bananas and cauliflower are a couple of my least favorite fruit and veg.  Cauliflower smells a bit like vomit to me and tastes bitter.  I don’t like it and refuse to be convinced it tastes remotely like a potato or can morph into a pizza crust.  Bananas are good in bread and that is how I eat most of them.  In smoothies they tend to take over and became the dominant flavour.  

One trend I do like Chia seed pudding.

 You are not going to find me making  fake ice cream out of bananas or pretending cauliflower is something that it is not.  For me those two trends just don’t work.  But there are lots of other trends out there for me to try and I will go for those.  

Flexing the Mental Muscle

For the last three months I have participated in the Fitocracy Arnold 1% challenge.  The jist of it is you do 15 Arnold workouts and you get a badge each month. Do three months and you get a the  a special badge.  The strange things that keep me motivated. But I really wanted those badges even when I didn’t want to do the challenge workouts.

My running togs for today.  It is hard to ignore them there.

Exercise is not always fun like we wish it was.  Bad days happen, lack of motivation happens but what can keep you going is your brain.  The mental muscles can play an important role in keeping you in going when you no longer want to.  Let’s go back to my challenge.  Month number three hit and I was over it. I wanted it out of my way so I can work on more important things in life like doing a chin up.  But I kept up at it and that was all mental.  I knew the routine exercises, doing them was not an issue, wanting to do them was the issue.

Exercising and staying consistent with it means you need to flex that mental muscle and develop discipline. No one jumps out of bed everyday ready to go all the time even when you love doing something.  But what you can do is change the mental part of the equation in my case getting some badges from Fitocracy was a major motivation to keep going on something I was bored with.  What motivates you?

Toss it! Do you hang onto stuff you don't want or like?

I have a confession to make: I hang on to stuff.  I’d would like to view myself as the person with the clean slate zen room, but I’m not.  I tend towards a more Victorian aesthetic which means I have stuff.  Some of it is worth keep and being a reader you tend to collect books and magazines. Eventually you have to cull them.  Old clothes get worn at home for loungies or for gardening.

The shirt!  I have had this since high school and that was a long while ago.

It seems like it takes less momentum to keep stuff than to get rid of it.  Getting rid of it means you have to sort through the pile of stuff, instead of just moving and shoving it in a closet. I had this  blue t-shirt and I have had it for forever.  I never really liked it, the but was off and it choked me.  So last year determined to use up that blue t-shirt, I cut the neck out of it. Which made it only slightly more comfy. I pulled it out to wear this summer, wore it for half a day and thought that’s it. I am done! I am not wearing this uncomfortable shirt again and tossed it into the bin. It is gone and I am very happy to never wear it again.   Sometimes you just have to let something go even if it is potentially useful.

A few of my declutter strategies:

1. For clothes:  Does it fit an do I love it? For books: Do I want to re-read? If I answer no, its donate or toss it depending on condition.

2. Do a little at a time.  I start to freak out if I sort too many clothes at one time and it all ends up back where it started.

3. When buying something I ask myself if I need it and do I love it.  Sometimes love trumps need.

4. If you don’t bring it home you avoid the whole having to get rid of altogether.

The Lunch Strategy

Today is one of those days where you stare out the window and watch the aspens fluttering in the breeze and wonder what the frell am I going to blog about.  I am having a distinct lack of blogspiration today. Part of me is just begging to skip blogging and go work out.

Today's lunch turkey pot pie leftover from Father's Day and some sticks.

Lunch for me is a difficult meal, it is in the middle of my day, I’m busy doing stuff and it just is a pain. If I could I would skip it I would.  But it usually comes after my workout and I am hungry, so I don’t.  A couple of years ago I started a lunch strategy after getting sick of getting to the fridge and everyone else had ate all the edible leftovers.  One should not have to cook at lunch time, reheating I can deal with, making a side of sauteed greens is sometimes doable.  Lunch and cooking forget that.

The Lunch Strategy

1. Make a big salad enough for two or three lunches.  I do the veg and add in what I am feeling that day.  Pine nuts are my current in thing.

2. Soup in the freezer.  2 cup packets they defrost easily and make a nice lunch.

3. Cook extra steak or chicken and freeze it.  This one has saved me so many times.  I freeze in portion sizes of about 3 to 4 ounces. It gets cut up and tossed into salads and soups.

4. Leftovers from last night’s dinner.  I’ve been known to stake my claim and write my name on tape and attach it to containers.

5. Sticks! Carrots and celery sticks make for a quick veg to pair with the protein lurking in the fridge.

What are your lunch strategies?

Body Image: Fat knees

So, okay this is a blog post about knees, yes really.  My knees are fat, this is the opinion I have of my knees.  Are knees sexy, cute, or hot?  Not really. But for whatever bizarre reason, I do not like mine.  My knees have always been huge  no matter how thin I was, the knees looked fat. Right about now you are thinking this chica is crazy.

There they are my knees.

There is a reason I decided to write about my crazy fat knee obsession.  Firstly, I had a dream in which my girlfriends and I were talking about my knees and one of them agreed they were fat.  It was one of those vague dream people so I don’t know who to point the finger at.  Secondly, Molly Galbraith’s Its Hard Out Here for a Fit Chick blog post which talks about her struggle with body image.

They are not as big as my brain likes to think they are.

Body image can be such a daunting task.  Why do we make loving ourselves body, soul, and mind so hard?  I find I am much more forgiving of others than I am of myself. Nitpicking about our body parts when you take a step back and look at it objectively is silly.  But at the same time that nitpicking can destroy how we feel about ourselves which makes it not silly at all.  You have to love yourself where you are right at this very second, not some future you or past you. 

Seated view.

I have decided I need to make peace with my knees and love them for what they can do for me and how they look.  Really they are not giant and fat knees for a person my size, it is time to stop calling my knees fat. It stops now.  My knees allowed me to squat 99 pounds for three set of five reps, that is awesome of them to help me do that.

Finding My Healthy Part 2: The Ramifications of an Unhealthy Lifestyle

The ramifications of eating trying not to eat, binging, sugar, and eating non-nutrient dense foods was I got sick.  Looking back at what I was doing to my body it is no surprise that I got sick. What is surprising is that I did not get sick sooner.  My body had enough and sent me a very loud and miserable message.

I needed more of this.

I was never a big milk drinker and had started drinking more for calcium, really not the best way to get more calcium, go for some kale instead. I think I always had a mild allergy but with the increases intake of milk I started getting migraines and was snotty leading to sinus infections.  It took me about a year to identify what my migraine trigger was.  I went dairy free, it sucked.  I love cheese and was pretty pissed off about not being able to eat cheese pizza.

And less of this.

Candida was rampant in my body fueled by the large amount of sugar I consumed.  My skin was rashy on my face and digestive tract was inflamed and not healthy.  Yet more dietary changes to get rid of this.  When my acupuncturists handed me the do not eat list for candida, I almost cried.

Not eating had left me with cold hands and feet, that once fall hit never warmed up once they were cold.  Hello classic symptom of under eating. My head was an oil slick, while my body was dry a result of not enough omega-3s in my diet.

I always had a headache, my energy was low, dinner was often sugar, milk in the smallest amounts would give me a three day migraine, poop issues, etc.  This was one of the most miserable times in my life and I did it to myself.  It took awhile to start getting healthy, but other than not being able to drink milk and a random migraine, usually hormone induced, I healed my body by eating real food.

Spinach, Pineapple, and Apple Smoothie

I’ve been loving this bright green smoothie lately.  It is as pretty as it is tasty.  The pineapple and apple compliment each other very nicely and neither one has a dominant flavour.  They work well together and the spinach makes this so vividly green and happy.

Spinach, Pineapple, and Apple Smoothie

2 good sized handfuls of spinach, about 2 generous cups

2 cups chunked pineapple

1 apple chopped, peeled and cored

2 cups almond milk

Toss in blender and blend for 2 minutes. It made about 1 and 1/4 quarts.  Store in refrigerator.

A Day in Food: Wednesday the 5th of June

First thing in the morning water and mango juice

Breakfast: 3 eggs scrambled with bacon, spinach, and cheese, English muffin followed up by a no bake energy bites

Post weights: homemade sports drink it was lemon that week and a strawberry coconut protein shake using this watermelon coconut shake but with strawberries, both versions are really yummy.

Lunch: a big salad with romaine, carrots, pine nuts, chicken, feta, croutons, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette ( 2 T. extra virgin olive oil and 1 T. balsamic vinegar.) This was the last of the veg in crisper.

Stuffed pork chops and corn.  Found some leftover stuffing in the freezer and it was cool out that day.  Corn is not my first choice for a "veg" but we had nothing left in the crisper and had just had every frozen veg already. 

Chocolate ice cream was sounding like the best food ever so for my treat of the day that is what I had.  Since I can't eat it very often I tend to have a good sized portion.  A milk allergy makes me snotty and my inner ears get swollen if I eat too much milk.  Fermented dairy products do not bother me as much as straight up milk. Other beverages not shown are coffee and Japanese allergy tea.


That is what I ate June 5th 2013.

No Bake Energy Bites

I am always looking for new ideas for food and when an Expat Canadian friend who lives Japan made Energy Bites with kinako it got me  thinking about them and how good they sounded.  Kinako is made of roasted soybeans that are ground.  It has a vaguely peanut butter like taste.  Since both are legumes it makes sense.  If you have kinako kicking around the house give this version a try otherwise stick with the ground flax seed.

The recipe base I use for this recipe comes from gimmesomeoven.  The nice thing about these is they are easy to modify if you are missing ingredients. I think barley flakes would be good in this.

No Bake Energy Bites.

1 cup old fashioned oats

2/3 cup of coconut flakes

1/2 cup peanut butter or nut butter of choice

1/2 cup kinako or ground flax seed

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup chocolate chips.

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon chia seeds

Dump it in a bowl and mix it up.  Form into balls.  If too soft chill for about an hour. I got about 25 energy bites.  They will keep for a week in the refrigerator tightly covered or you can freeze them.

Fitting in Exercise

The weather has not been on my side so far for the the last couple of weeks.  See the plan was to run three days a week and do weights two days a week.  That has not happened.  There was one not bad day and one nice day, I did run on both those days but for most of the week it was rainy and cold.

Wind died down while taking pictures.

It hits the point where you just have to make something work even if it is not the planned exercise. Whether it is work, social obligations, weather it seems like there is always something ready to get in the way of exercise.  It helps to have some strategies to deal with this, keep in mind you do not need to be perfect.  It is alright to go off schedule, sometimes  the best option is to take a rest week and then get back to exercising.

I use these strategies all the time.

1. Schedule your exercise, it is an appointment with yourself, keep it.

2. Know what you want to do that week.  Currently I know I want to run 3 days and lift 2 and do as much yoga as feels good.

3. Have a back up plan.  This can be having exercise DVDs at home or just swapping things around.  Since the weather is not on my side this week will most likely end up lift 3  and run 2.

4. Plan your rest days into the schedule.  I am going to Bozeman on Thursday and will be gone all day, that will definitely be a rest day.

5.  Don’t get caught up in the details, just do something and move.  Strolling around the block counts.

6. Rest and recovery are important and vital to any workout plan.  Make sure you get enough rest and adding in foam rolling will help your muscles feel better in the long run.

Watermelon Coconut Protein Shake

Where did last week go?  It felt like it started and then it ended. Here is a quick blog about the current protein shake I am loving, watermelon coconut.  We cut our watermelons up in chunks to eat so often we have juice in the bottom of the tub, so I use that if possible. If you like ice in your shakes by all means use some. I am not keen on ice in general.

Watermelon Coconut Protein Shake

1 cup of watermelon chunks

1 teaspoon of coconut oil

1 cup soy milk, almond milk, or watermelon juice

1/2 cup water or soy milk (sub this for water if I have used watermelon juice)

1 scoop of protein powder (I am currently using Vitacost’s vanilla)

Blend it up with an immersion blender or blender.